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This bill would have created enormous resentment on behalf of homeowners, the ones who would have watched ugly four-story boxes go up in their neighborhoods. T

• esoterica 7y ago
  The McMansions are uglier anyway. Is your right to not look at ugly boxes more important than other people’s right to have a home for less than $2 million?
  • i_am_nomad 7y ago
    This bill doesn't propose upzoning the kinds of neighborhoods where the "McMansions" are. Those houses are generally speaking way out in the suburbs and exurbs. SB 50 targets regions close to major cities, and most of that are "old growth" neighborhoods. And, to your second statement: if people do indeed have a "right" to a home less than $2 million, they can exercise that right. It just might not be in Palo Alto.
    • chrischen 7y ago
      Except that NIMBYISM is everywhere. Trlling people to “just move” is not only unfair (see Katrina aftermath) it’s not reasonable since you are exerting undue influence over your neighborhood and essentially the right of others to live near you, but not on you.
    • esoterica 7y ago
      Alternately, if people want to exercise their “right” to not look at apartment buildings, they should move somewhere rural where land is cheap enough that no one builds them.
      • WillPostForFood 7y ago
        That’s exactly what people did ~60 years ago. Bought some farmland way outside San Francisco, built houses and a community. No because a few billionaire execs want to keep their companies close to their houses, we are going to tear it all down? By all means, densify downtown San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose. But I don’t understand the perverse desire to add density to far suburbs.
        • cgy1 7y ago
          One big reason to densify the suburbs (speaking of the bay area in particular) is that they're in Silicon Valley and that's where most of the tech jobs are (e.g., Apple, Google, Facebook, etc.). These cities are willing to let companies come in and collect that sweet tax revenue but are not willing to allow sufficient housing to be built to house all of those workers.
          • WillPostForFood 7y ago
            What sweet tax revenue are you talking about? Cities would make more from a car dealership or an Apple store than a mega office complex. Regardless, it is easier to move the office than build housing for the office. Incentivize companies to be downtown SF/SJ/Oak near transit if density is the goal. Building medium density mid-peninsula is a mess of an idea that will end up creating as many commuters as local workers.
        • souprock 7y ago
          People also did that ~60 years ago right in the middle of San Francisco. There was plenty of cheap empty land. I have a relative there who bought her 4-bedroom house in 1963 for $9000. She likes her neighborhood. There is plenty of free parking. If there were still any kids, they could play in the street. Normally there is zero traffic of any kind. There is no trash and certainly no biohazard problem. I guess she votes to keep it that way. Wouldn't most people do so? She helped create the neighborhood that so many people envy. Anybody else who wants a similar neighborhood can go do the same thing: build a house in a cheap area with open land, then live there for 56 years. What people are demanding is to skip that effort. People don't want to build out on empty hills and then wait 56 years. They just want to take what people like her created, degrading it with excess traffic.
  • newsoul2019 7y ago
    >> other people’s right to have a home for less than $2 million? No one has such a right. If you want to buy a home for under $2 million, there are plenty of these in the East Bay and East San Jose. No shortage at all.
• danem 7y ago
  If it were truly only addressing the problems of big cities, then why would developers feel the demand to build in more suburban areas? Clearly this isn't only a big city problem.
• cgy1 7y ago
  Oh no not the poor homeowners that are being heavily subsidized via Prop 13. I'll be sure to shed a tear for them.